Cakes

Making/baking with the sister 2 by Kevin

  Michelle arrived early Wednesday morning, I had just gotten back the evening beforehand. I had to get everything ready that night! So we had a bit of a busy morning. We got right to it..we went for breakfast. Then went looking for biscuit cutters. Then we decided to start getting ready. We got around to making 3 things.

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Whiskey Marmalade Cake for Silke & Patsy, with icing by Kevin

So I stayed in a wonderful woman house in Galway named Patsy, Silke of Corleggy Cheeses was also there! So I promised them dinner and dessert for one of the evening I was there. So I decided that they'd appreciate this cake. So..i've used 'so' alot in this post.

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What you'll need:

for the cake

  • 150g unsalted butter, softened
  • 100g caster sugar
  • 100g light brown sugar
  • Zest of 2 organic unwaxed oranges, plus juice of 1 orange
  • 3 large eggs
  • 14 teaspoon salt
  • 75g of whiskey marmalade
  • 175g self-raising flour

for the icing

  • Juice and zest of ½ orange
  • seeds of ½ vanilla pod
  • 100g or so of icing sugar

Preheat oven to 180°C/gas 4, Butter a 1kg loaf tin and line with baking paper.

Beat softened butter with both sugars in a large bowl till very pale and fluffy. Add orange zest and mix. In a jug crack in eggs break the yolks up a little with a fork. Slowly begin adding eggs to the butter mixture, beating till it's fulling incorporated.

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Add the orange juice, salt and marmalade and mix very well. Sift flour over the top and mix just enough to combine. Scrape the bottom and sides of the bowl to make sure you've gotten all the butter. Give it one final mix and spoon into the tin.

Bake for about 45min. Remove from the over and allow to cool for 10min in the tin. Once removed from the tin leave to cool on a rack.

While it's cooling make the icing. In a jug, whisk together the orange juice, zest, vanilla seeds and icing sugar (about 1 tablespoon at a time till it's slightly thick)

Pour over the top of the cake and let it run down the sides.

...wrap it nicely and bring to Galway on a train the next day.

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Terribly Chocolatly Chocolate Brownies by Kevin

So we decided Brownies and ginger bread men would be our baked goods for the day. We also made a Whiskey Marmalade Cake!

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What you'll need:

  • 300g dark chocolate chopped, plus 150g extra
  • 100g unsalted butter, plus extra for greasing
  • ½ teaspoon sea salt
  • 3 eggs
  • 50g light brown sugar
  • 150g caster sugar
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 100g plain flour

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Preheat your oven to 180°C/gas mark 4. Grease a 20cm square baking tin and line with baking paper, get it around the edges too. Place 300g of chocolate, butter and salt in a heatproof bowl over gently simmering water. Let it melt down slowly. In another bowl, break up the eggs and add the sugars and vanilla till its all incorporated.

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Whisk it into the melted choclate mixture. Gently fold in flour and 150g of roughly chopped chocolate till just mixed. Pour into prepared tin. Bake for 25min or till it's set. Leave them to cool entirely in the tin. Cut into squares. Eat!

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Lemon Drizzle Cake by Kevin

So I asked Michelle last week what she'd like to learn to bake, she said "ice-cream"....so that was find....then she said "Lemon Drizzle" a few days later. So that was also grand, talking to her yesterday I found out we were going to make both :) This was actually the second thing we started this morning. We began making ths once the custard for the ice-cream was cooling. But not to worry we'll begin here!

What you'll need:

For the Cake:

  • 175g softened butter, plus a bit to grease the loaf tin
  • 175g caster sugar
  • pinch of salt
  • Finely grated zest of 2 unwaxed lemons
  • 2 eggs
  • 75ml milk
  • 175g plain flower
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder

For the glaze:

  • 100g caster sugar
  • Juice of 1 lemon

Preheat your over to 170°C/gas 3. Butter a 1kg loaf tin and line the bottom with baking paper. Beat the softened butter, sugar and salt in a large bowl till light and fluffy. Add lemon and whisk well till it's incorporated. Beat in the eggs one at a time, mixing well after you add in each one. (it kinda looks like scrambled eggs at this stage) Then add the milk. Combine. Sift in flour and baking powder together. Fold the mixture till it's well combined. Try not to over mix! Pour it into the prepared tin and level it off. Bake for 40-45 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the centre comes out clean.

Leave it to stand in the tin for about 15 minutes. Turn it out onto a rack and leave to cool the rest of the way. Once cooled place it on your serving tray. To make the drizzle combine the lemon and sugar in sausepan. Stir gently till the sugar is dissolved. Keep heating till it becomes syrupy. Don't let it boil!

Prick the top of the cake, then pour the syrup all over the top. Don't let hot sugar land on your hand...it's not cool. The cake keeps in an airtight tin for about 4 days.

Making/Baking with the Sister. by Kevin

What a day we had! Michelle arrived at 9:30 or so this morning. I knew we had to go show a wonderful tourist around the city in the afternoon. So we had to get as much done in as little time as possible. With Michelle learning some of these recipes I am reluctant to do any prep work and we start everything from scratch. The only thing I got around to doing yesterday was leaving the freezer bowl for the icecream in a freezer. So in the order that they emerged from the kitchen!

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Click of the pictures to go to the posts! Ah-Yay!

Michelle gently holds her new cookies:

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It was great to see Michelle's mind off things for a while today. We had a laugh. For people who don't know which is the majority of you, at the start of the year we lost our Father and Grandad one week apart. It's been particulary hard for my little sister and sometimes I worry that I don't know what to do for her. If this helps her feel better in any little way I'd gladly spend all week creating tasty things with her. But at least for the moment it'll be once a week and it'll be wonderful. Thanks for reading!

Semolina Sponge Cake for Lorraine! by Kevin

So as it says above this cake was for Lorraine. It was Lorraine's birthday so I decided she would need a cake! I had the idea for this cake on Father's Day when I was teaching my sister how to make a Victoria Sponge. There's 3 main things needed to make this cake. SO this is my first recipe post so you know....bear with me. There's also fondant involved for the lettering.

nom nom nom nom I loe Alt-text.

What you'll need to make this cake!

 

For the sponge

  • 6 eggs, seperated
  • 300g caster sugar
  • 240g semolina flour
  • Grated Zest of 1 organic unwaxed lemon
  • 1 heaped teaspoon baking powder

For the salted caramel sauce

  • 1 can of condensed milk (379g)
  • 150g soft dark brown sugar
  • 150g butter
  • pinch of maldon salt

...you end up with some extra caramel sauce...but that's never a bad thing.

For the Apricot Butter Cream

  • 227g unsalted butter, softened
  • 2 lots of caster sugar 50g each
  • 8 fresh apricots

or if you get apricot jam just use 1 lot of caster sugar.

  • 2 egg yolks

Ok so that's everything! So we'll begin!

Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/Gas Mark 4 and grease a 20cm cake tin with butter. Whisk the egg yolks and sugar until smooth then gradually whisk in small amounts of the flour. Add the lemon zest. In a seperate bowl whisk egg whites until they form stiff peaks, then fold into the mixture with the baking powder. Pour into the tin and bake for 30-35 minutes. Pop it out and let it is in the tray for 15 minutes. The flip it upside-down on a wire rack and leave to cool. It should look a little like this:

A sponge cake! With no filter.

Once it's cool slice it in half like so:

golden wonderfulness.......

Ok I have acidtate strips that wrap around and keep everything in place, if not place the bottom half of the pizza back in cake tin.

Ok so caramel sauce, in a saucepan melt the butter and sugar together till it's smooth. Once all the sugar is dissolved pour in the condensed milk. Stir it continuously till the first bubble appears. Don't let it boil!

Pour it over the bottom half and leave it to cool in the fridge for a half hour.

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Pop it back out and put the top half on.

Now last but not least the apricot butter cream:

In a small pop cook down the apricots with 50g of sugar....or if you have apricot jamdo nothing. Beat the butter till it's pale and creamy. Beat in the remaining sugar, apricots and egg yolks. Mix it till its very smooth.

Spread it over cake and add small insult.

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I also made a box for the cake...there's no recipe for this but you can have a look.

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Ok. Done. Yay.